Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

That is simply not good enough. It is not enough to say that St. Patrick's and St. Mochta's will be available for consideration. They must be on that new list. They have been promised it for nine years now. We keep hearing that Ireland is in recovery and there is no excuse for the Government to delay this any longer. It is not just a question of bad planning and promises made by previous regimes. Myself and Deputy Joe Higgins are sick, sore and tired of attending meetings in St. Mochta's over the years, where Ministers, including some from the current Government, promised the community that they would ensure those projects would become a reality. I attended those public meetings myself during local election and by-election campaigns and so forth.

If those schools are not on the new list, I will call on parents and teachers to use their votes in the forthcoming election and to make sure they mobilise their communities. I will also call on them to refuse to put children, teachers, SNAs and other employees through this any longer and to consider taking the extra 300 children who were enrolled out of the school in protest. Why should children suffer for broken promises by the establishment parties in Dublin West? There are other schools in the area, including Mary Help of Christians on the Navan Road, where children are in prefabs. We also need the Rathborne Educate Together school on the Navan Road to be built. The other crisis looming in the area is secondary school places. Even though there has been a catch up in terms of some of the primary schools, the school community has grown older.

It is not acceptable that children should go to a school where there are buckets in the corridors to collect rainwater. Does the Minister of State think it is acceptable? Does he think it is acceptable that children should wear their coats in class and that all of the funding for a school in a hard-pressed working class community is spent on heating a draughty school, rather than on resources such as computers which other schools in more well-heeled areas have?

It is scandalous that the Department of Education and Skills approached the board of management at St. Mochta's and asked the members to take on additional pupils. They did so in good faith but they have been spurned and shunned again and again. I will make sure that the people of Dublin West use their political power in the forthcoming election and mobilise the community to get these two schools built.

See this speech in context